Comprehensive plan to eliminate poverty needed

Michael Cullen's review of assistance for beneficiaries
is just tinkering with the design of the poverty trap, it is
not a strategy to eliminate poverty, says Tariana Turia,
Co-leader of the Maori Party.

"It's another sign that the
government responds to polls, but not to people in
distress," says Mrs Turia.

"The situation of people on
the lowest incomes, including benefits, is getting worse
very quickly. The government was too slow to respond with
the budget. Now it's talking about a band-aid solution, to
stop the bad PR it's getting.

"The kind of help that Dr
Cullen is offering beneficiaries will simply keep people
alive in the poverty trap - it won't get them out of it.

"What's needed is a comprehensive strategy, driven by a
belief that poverty is unacceptable in the midst of plenty,
and it must be eliminated," said Mrs Turia. "If they don't
believe it, then change won't happen."

"The high price of
dairy products means the poor have to go without, while
industrial farmers become millionaires. Our food prices are
following a global trend. People overseas are starving.

"Our people will starve too, unless we tackle the
systemic causes of poverty," she said. "Poverty is not
created by the poor."

The Maori Party says:

* Provide
a universal benefit for parents raising children. If
families are already well off, recoup the benefit from tax
on higher incomes. (Universal benefits reach the neediest
families most effectively.)

* Set a baseline for poverty
at 60% of the average wage, and a deadline of 2020 to
eliminate child poverty.

* Exempt the first $25,000 of
income from tax.

* Raise the minimum wage to $15 per
hour.

* Remove GST from food. (The government says this
would make the tax system too complex, but that argument
hasn't stopped them granting all sorts of exemptions from
the Emissions Trading Scheme.)

"It is deeply ingrained in New Zealanders to care
about te pani me te rawakore, the poor and vulnerable. But
the government is listening to lobbyists for the wealthy
elite.

"A bit more emergency assistance for beneficiaries
will not get to the root of the problem. There has to be a
significant change of attitude towards redistribution of
wealth through the economic system, and asking what kind of
society we want," said Mrs Turia.

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